Introduction
After a major rebrand, KBR— a global science, technology, and government solutions company— needed a way to support its new marketing strategy. They were looking for a future-proof content solution that would allow them to reach their employees and global audiences worldwide.
So far, KBR has:
Global corporations like KBR always seek innovative solutions to engage their global audience. This challenge intensifies when you consider the scale of these organizations: KBR, with its 34,000 employees scattered across 30 countries, is a perfect example of the struggles a modern multinational faces.
“It really allowed us to do so much more, faster, and more cost-effectively without being dependent on a third party.”
Jess Burnett
Director of Global Marketing, KBR
Read more below to find out how they managed to tackle this challenge.
1 - Who is KBR?
Jess Burnett, Director of Global Marketing at KBR, sat with us to tell us more about the company:
"KBR is an ever-evolving company. We deliver science, technology, and government solutions to governments and countries around the world. For example, with our government solutions U.S. business, we do a lot of work for NASA." - Jess Burnett, Director of Global Marketing, KBR
KBR is a company of innovators shaping the future. From space exploration to defense, they tackle complex challenges for governments and businesses around the world. Their mission is to improve the world responsibly, using technology and expertise to push industries forward.
One big mission that resonates globally is KBR's involvement with the James Webb Space Telescope. This powerful telescope, launched in 2021 by NASA, is designed to peer back in time to see the very first galaxies ever formed. KBR's engineers played a crucial role in developing the hardware and software that operate the telescope.
2- With such a global team, streamlining their processes became a challenge
KBR's journey with Foleon began when Jess joined the company, marking a strategic shift towards a more unified and impactful marketing approach. Jess recalls:
"We started using Foleon about the same time that I started at KBR. When I joined, we had just undergone a major rebrand of our company. Previously, we were part of Halliburton, then we split, and we were on our own for a long time, but still looked and felt like Halliburton. We finally rebranded in mid-2019. At the same time, the global marketing and communications team was born. Previously, marketing was done in individual business units, but there wasn't really collaboration amongst the business or a global strategy or plan."
Reaching a global audience with a message that resonates across diverse cultures and languages requires a strategic and multi-layered approach. KBR faced some challenges in engaging its diverse audience. With such a wide range of services, conveying their message in a compelling and future-proof way became one of their main goals:
3- The need for a future-proof solution became urgent
Streamlined content creation process
In 2019, Jess led the search for the right partner, something that would match KBR's vision and needs. They had two significant challenges: getting their message out to people worldwide and ensuring their information was always up-to-date.
KBR's average working time to publish a Doc is now 6 days, which is incredibly fast for such a global company. "Today, we have about 300 unique Docs in Foleon," Jess added.
Sustaining constant change
Before Foleon, KBR encountered a common content creation challenge: the absence of a centralized platform that would allow them to update their content easily.
Keeping hundreds of static website pages up-to-date was a real headache for their marketing team, particularly as the company evolved.
"In the past, the process of changing content on our website was pretty burdensome. It could take weeks, if not months, to work with the agency. We realized that if we changed our process, not only could we create more engaging content because we could design it the way we wanted to and not have to work within the confines of a website template, but we could also update it very quickly," explains Jess.
"What Foleon has given us," adds Jess, "is the ability to create microsite-like deliverables ourselves." Jess refers to KBR's designers as "all-stars," who quickly adapted to the platform to create amazing micro-sites.
"It really just allowed us to do so much more, faster, and more cost-effectively without being dependent on a third party," Jess adds when talking about their content creation process. By streamlining this process, KBR made substantial savings.
4- The marketing strategy is now globally supported by Foleon
Amazing performance metrics
Success often depends on a brand's ability to resonate with its audience on a global scale. For KBR, this challenge was amplified by its expansive reach across 30 countries. They are working hard to build a global marketing strategy, which Foleon supports across different departments and countries:
They needed to have performance metrics to track the performance of all their content on a global scale.
"We measure success with Foleon through engagement. We're able to see that people are clicking, reading, and filling out forms. That's how we're measuring, and we know that people are reading and interacting with our deliverables," explains Jess.
KBR has been ramping up content production. In 2023 alone, they published 124 Docs, which represents a 30% increase in the number of Docs published compared to the previous year.
It's not just about quantity; They also worked on improving efficiency. Back in 2022, they managed to cut down the time it took to publish a Doc by 82%, all while doubling the production rate from 46 to 96 documents. Talk about a win-win!
Strategic partnership decision-making
The integration capabilities of Foleon with other platforms, such as Bynder, represented a huge driver in their decision-making process throughout the strategy planning.
"Foleon is also driving our decision-making for other partnerships. We recently started a relationship with Bynder, a digital asset management platform. We had three great companies in the DAM world. All the products are pretty similar, right? However, a huge selling feature for us was the integration between Foleon and Bynder. And that put them ahead of the other companies we were looking at," Jess told us.
Expanding to different departments
Little by little, KBR's entire marketing team started to use Foleon for different use cases. Gradually, other departments, such as IT, also saw potential use cases for their needs, as Jess explains:
Foleon’s expansion across different departments made it easier for the marketing team to keep an eye on the content being created everywhere.
Jess explains: "People saw what we were creating in Foleon and trusted that it was a solution for different types of deliverables. The truth is, everyone wants in on Foleon; our team gets requests daily for a seat. We’re protective because we’re responsible for our global brand. So, I need to make sure it's consistent and cohesive. So, the more people we let in, the more deliverables will be developed. In the future, we can create workflows to help control that. We actually ended up getting another workspace, so I.T. has its own workspace now. They are doing their stuff, and then the majority of deliverables are coming out from our end, but we just started expanding."
5- Exploring new use cases with Foleon
This expansion of Foleon across multiple departments has also been applied to different use cases within their marketing efforts. What began as a quarterly publication evolved into a wide-ranging strategy, with Foleon serving as the backbone for many deliverables, including brochures, HR onboarding guides, sustainability reports, event content, and more.
Boosting human resources efforts
They reinvented their team member onboarding process, digitizing and localizing HR materials and benefits packages for global use.
"Some of the first things our new employees see are Foleon deliverables. These deliverables have been localized to all of our different countries too," Jess told us.
Foleon remains integral to KBR's HR initiatives, with plans to expand its usage to develop even more comprehensive HR materials.
Working on brand marketing
As mentioned earlier, KBR uses Foleon to create "micro-sites." These sites are now completely integrated with their website, making the navigation smoother.
Jess explained:
"Anyone who visited KBR.com before October 2023 would have landed on a site with 400-plus pages of incredibly dense content. We took all that buried content and moved it to individual Foleon deliverables. Each business unit has a Foleon Doc with its capabilities, and it's just such a great experience.
This experience allowed the marketing team to empower each business unit to create its own content while keeping an eye on the branding.
6- The construction of a true partnership
Collaborating effectively
Jess highlighted the significance of their partnership with Foleon, emphasizing its impact on various aspects of their operations.
"Foleon has a great product, but what you really have is great people. From the beginning, every person we’ve ever worked with at Foleon has just been so engaged, responsive, and easy to work with."
The ability to rely on consistent support, no matter the situation, is fundamental for building trust in both relationships and global strategies. Being able to bounce off ideas and brainstorm together has been a driver of this partnership. The Foleon team is dedicated to enabling KBR's success, as Jess recalls:
Sharing a common vision
Another aspect that made this partnership successful is the shared values of innovation and customer focus. Jess found it to be a powerful motivator:
"I am always promoting Foleon. I was recently at a dinner where we talked about tech stacks and the best platforms out there. When it was my turn, I spent most of the time talking about Foleon because it's a great platform to do so many things.
KBR frequently shares their thoughts about Foleon and appreciates that we take this feedback into account. Customer feedback is at the heart of our strategy. This was a very important part of the conversation for us. Here's what Jess had to say about this:
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